Jerrell Arterberry, 34, was stabbed to death inside an apartment in the 200 block of West Pershing Road in the Wentworth Gardens area of Armour Square, on Chicago's South Side, on the afternoon of Thursday, July 2, 2020. The Chicago Police Department investigated, and Area One detectives were assigned to the case.
According to police, the stabbing happened about 1:50 p.m. Officers found Arterberry inside an apartment with a stab wound to his body. He died at the scene. The Cook County medical examiner's office identified him, and an autopsy found that he died from the stab wound and ruled his death a homicide. Arterberry did not live at the location; he lived in East Garfield Park on the West Side, several miles away. Police did not say who else was present.
Police did not release a description of a suspect, a motive or any details about what led to the stabbing.
The Chicago Sun-Times reported that no arrests had been announced as Area One detectives conducted a homicide investigation. No public appeal for information, surveillance images or reward tied to his death could be found.
Very little about Arterberry's life has entered the public record. No obituary, funeral notice, family fundraiser or memorial page could be found for him. He surely had family and friends, but none have spoken publicly.
Some questions stand out. The stabbing happened indoors and in daylight, which suggests that the people in the apartment, or neighbors in the building, may know exactly what happened. It is also not known why Arterberry was in Wentworth Gardens that day, whom he had come to see, or whether there had been an argument before he was stabbed.
The 200 block of West Pershing Road is part of the area around Wentworth Gardens, a Chicago Housing Authority development in Armour Square that sits a few blocks from the Chicago White Sox ballpark and close to the Dan Ryan Expressway. Neighbors there often know one another by sight, and a police response on a weekday afternoon would have been hard to miss.
Chicago recorded about 780 homicides in 2020, up from about 500 the year before. Police reported clearing roughly half of the city's homicides in those years, though those figures count cases closed without charges.
Old Chicago cases can still move. Rasheedah Beyah, 42, died in August 2020 of injuries from a 2019 beating in Park Manor; in March 2022, prosecutors charged a man with first-degree murder in her death.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Jerrell Arterberry could be found in news archives or public records. More than 6 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who was in or near the apartment on Pershing Road that Thursday afternoon, or who knows why he was there and whom he was with, may be able to help. Even a small detail, such as a name overheard, a car seen leaving the area or a conversation remembered, can help detectives move a case forward. Anyone with information can call the Chicago Police Department's anonymous tip line at (833) 408-0069 or submit a tip online at CPDTIP.com, or contact Cook County Crime Stoppers at (800) 535-STOP (7867).
